Orindal

Claire Cronin announces new album The Bruise, shares leadoff track "Black Water" 20 Aug 2026


(Photo courtesy of Claire Cronin)

File Under:
folk horror /American spiritual dread / heavy music / slowcore / nocturnal mothers / uncanny atmospheres / transcendence / hauntology / family curses / sincerity / diabolus in music / experimental doom / negative theology / childbirth / hymns

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Old radios. Ritual bells. A cawing crow. A mother singing in the darkness. These figures haunt The Bruise—the new album of heavy folk songs from musician and writer Claire Cronin.

Her third release on Orindal Records after Big Dread Moon (2019) and Bloodless (2021), and crafted in the same spirit as her cult-favorite book, Blue Light of the Screen: On Horror, Ghosts, and God (2020), The Bruise is an immersive sequel in Cronin’s brand of folk horror.

Inspired by the atmospheres of doom metal and the spectral, disintegrating layers of avant-garde drone music, The Bruise is evocative and textured, but still centered on Cronin’s voice and guitar. Vocals are tripled with eerie harmonies, like sad angels singing. Electric guitars are bent to sound like old radio transmissions. The warm, spiritual hum of a harmonium spills across tracks. An Irish bodhrán keeps time at loose intervals. Musical saws, ritual bells, and violas make the weather that Cronin’s voice wades through.

The premiere of The Bruise's leadoff track, "Black Water," comes courtesy of Flood Magazine. Flood's Mike LeSuer writes:

Claire Cronin is a doom-metal artist in the same way someone like Marissa Nadler is a doom-metal artist: she understands how to extract the occult energy of the genre and repurpose it for minimalist, haunting folk songs that wouldn’t sound out of place on a bill with Bell Witch. Today she’s announcing that she’ll make her return in October (naturally) with a new album called The Bruise, with the lead single “Black Water” proving to be yet another dark ballad about something unexpectedly ordinary. “When I first wrote this song, I wasn’t sure what the imagery was about, but it felt emotionally true,” the artist shares. “Two years after I finished it, I had a harrowing experience while giving birth to my second child. That nearness to death and life felt like something the song prophesied.”


The Bruise will be released October 9, 2026 on Orindal Records and A Moth Object.

Iridescent gold vinyl, classic black vinyl, digital downloads & a 20-page Risograph-printed Lyrics & Art zine are available for pre-order HERE. Cassette tapes are available from A Moth Object.